The Boy Without a Soul
by TheRavenWritingDesk
Summary: Ever Reckford lived an average life. That is, until she met Antony.. The boy who was supposed to be dead. This is an original story I'm working on! hope y'all like it!
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

There is a tendency today, in our supernatural renaissance, to see the once ferocious monsters as tame. Vampires are brooding teenagers, removed from the Renfields, completely disassociated from the squalor of madness and the unpleasantness of violence. Werewolves are over-protective teddy bears; their wolf sides provide nothing more than strength and passion. Wizards are embodied in young, naïve orphans, who live and fight for all that is good.

Do not submit to these romantic ideals. They are traps in red wrapping, luring you close and cutting you down. While you pine over fictional brooding vampires or troubled teen wolves, the real thing lurks in the shadow. It has no interest in your feelings or your mind. It stalks you, prey and predator.

Some fables are true. Most monsters are stunningly beautiful, attractive, alluring to their victims. Any girl with half a bad-boy complex is particularly susceptible to their charms. Don't confuse the hunt for a chase, though. They do not care about 'getting THE girl'. They care about getting a girl. Or a boy. Or anything large, blooded, and alive. They don't woo; they prowl. They are not fascinated by our humanity, they don't long to rejoin us. They hunger for what we can give them: sustenance. Love is of no use to them. They are base, aggressive monsters.

I'm not trying to crush your dreams. I'm trying to give you the warning I didn't have, to save you the heartache I've suffered. Because lions dating lambs only lasts until dinner time.

So if you think the new guy might be lacking a heart beat or sporting claws or otherwise more or less than human, do not think that you are the clumsy-but-beautiful girl who is going to tame the beast.

Why should you trust me?

I've been there and lived to tell the story. I've read the books that promised happy endings and lived the dangerous reality.

My name is Ever Reckford and the boy I loved was soulless.


	2. Chapter 2

I didn't fit the profile. I wasn't an outcast, crazy smart, super chaste, or alternative. I wasn't one of the kids that partied every school night, though several weekends in my memory had been blurred into obscurity by clandestine, typical, teenage parties. I wasn't gunning for valedictorian. I was smart enough, but my stubborn streak prevented me from jumping through every hoop my teachers threw at me and stopped me from achieving the kind of grades that became defining. I'd had boyfriends. The 'we'll be together forever' kind, the 'this is awkward, we barely talk' kind, and the 'no, no, you're cuter when you don't speak' kind. Not a peppy cheerleader or a hippie vegan or a debate team over-achiever or an over-enthusiastic theatre geek, I was very average, and happily so.

My parents were both alive and still married. I had a sister, Bette, who was three years younger than me, in 8th grade. We got along better than most siblings, though we fought often enough. Our disagreements usually centered around one of us noticing a shirt, eyeliner, or hair tie that had migrated a few centimeters from "where I _deliberately_ put it because I _knew_ you were going to take it!"

We didn't live in an incestuous small town or an immoral big city. We lived in the suburbs of New Jersey. There wasn't anywhere more PB&J on the planet. So it was a big deal when our local librarian Ms. Grassle's grandson went missing. I was concerned, in a kind of detached way, more uneasy because I feared for myself than worried for Antony Grassle, who had been visiting his grandmother with his family from out of town and whom I had never met.

The whole town had the same reaction. We were up in arms, not over the disappearance of Antony, over the disappearance of our sense of security. So the parents of Greenwich, NJ, pronounced 'green witch', plastered Antony's photo alongside the neighborhood watch signs in the hopes that his safe return would herald the return to placid normalcy that people submit to the suburbs for.

After four months or so, everyone but the most ardent Law & Order fans had tired of the energy being a conspiracy theorist required. We returned to routine; school started in September without a hitch. I think the Grassles returned to Vermont, or wherever they lived, and waited for news there, though no one thinking clearly expected any. My uneasiness had slipped away as easily as the 'Missing' posters; every once in a while a lone poster would spring up, but they didn't have the same overwhelming quality. They were interesting to observe, isolated and removed from the incident itself. Eventually the last of the flyers succumbed to rain or wind. It wasn't till the third week of school that Antony crossed my mind again.

And that's only because I saw him running naked through my backyard.


	3. Chapter 3

If I had to pinpoint a single moment that things started to go downhill, that was it. Despite the copious horror movies I had seen, and bad cop-dramas, I didn't call 911 to let them know that a previously missing person had just done a bare-assed dash across my backyard. Looking back, I can say with confidence that had I stayed in my room and called the cops, nothing would have ended up the way it did.

But of course, I didn't.

At first, I'll forgive my stupidity because it didn't register. We all thought Antony was dead. That or kidnapped and taken far, far from Greenwich. Either way, no one was expecting to ever see him again. So I think I was just shocked when I leaned my head out the window and yelled down to him.

"Hey!"

He either didn't hear me or did and kept running anyway. Which made me think (let's say I'm still in shock at this point) that he had been hiding out for the past month (because the best way to remain incognito is to go streaking). So I took it upon myself to throw on some sneakers—sans socks—and zip up a sweatshirt before running into the kitchen, onto the deck, and down to the grass of my backyard. About the same time the cold autumn air hit me, so did the thought that maybe, just maybe, running in the dark after a naked guy might not be the smartest move I'd ever made.

It seemed pointless anyway. I'd lost sight of Antony during the time after I'd left my window and before I'd made it outside. And it was dark enough that I couldn't see where he'd made off to. He could have stayed straight and run through my neighbor's yard, or he could have veered into the narrow strip of farm land that was separated from my yard by one solitary row of trees that hadn't been thrown over for cornstalks when the rest of the forest had been cleared.

I looked back at the house. Should I go back and get a flashlight? A cell phone? For god's sake, some boxer-briefs? I checked the time on my plastic cartoon watch. Past one. I heard a rustle in some of the overgrown shrubs my mother had planted to maintain an illusion of privacy from the neighbors, who still had a frustrating tendency to shout over them, instead of pretending that they created an impermeable obstacle.

The rustle rustled again and I was sure I could see pale skin between the leaves. The rustling stopped and I waited for either a bunny or a naked missing person to spring from the bush's depths. Experience and campy horror films had taught me those were my only options. When nothing happened, I backed up to the shed, eyes still on the shrub, unlatched the door and grabbed a rake. I inched forward, rake held over my head gladiator-style. When I was in range, I took a deep breath and starting flailing madly with my improvised weapon.

Absolutely nothing but nothing came out of the bush except hundreds of murdered leaves. The rake hit the ground next to me. Was I absolutely sure I had seen Antony? I _thought_ I had, but it was late and I was tired. It's possible I just imagined it. Or maybe it wasn't Antony. Was I absolutely certain that this was the same dark-haired, olive-skinned, kinda-cute missing teen from the posters? Maybe it was some other town's missing teen that decided to go for a jog at one in the morning in his permanent party suit?

I had half convinced myself that was true. The posters said Antony was pretty tall. The person I saw running through the yard seemed decently short. Yeah, good. Let's go with that. I turned back to the house and made for the stairs. It took me a second to register the guy standing on the first step, gripping the rails and preventing me from climbing up.

Antony.

And, oh god.

He was still naked.


End file.
